The Airline Insolvency Review recommends that a 20p levy to each passenger could help if another airline goes bust like Monarch did

Referencing the failure of Air Berlin which happened at a similar time, he said: “The German government chose to provide immediate financial support to keep the airline temporarily running through administration."

He continued: “Two insolvencies with two different responses. Both managing to avoid thousands of passengers being left to fend for themselves, both costing the taxpayer significant amounts of money.”

The report also reveals that many customers are now confused about what kind of travel insurance they should be buying.

It said: “On any one flight several of the passengers may have unwittingly paid twice or more for the same protection.

Air Berlin filed for insolvency in 2017, around the same time as Monarch

Why did Monarch go down?

Essentially Monarch had an outdated business model – and then some of its key markets such as Tunisia evaporated in the wake of terror attacks.

This left it reliant on countries such as Spain where competition from other airlines was fierce.

Monarch had tried to operate in both the budget airline and leisure sectors without success. Dr Neil Robinson, tourism expert from the University of Salford Business School, explains: “They had no clear market to focus on and [had] been unable to tailor their offer enough for either.”

Why was there no warning that this would happen?

Any announcement about potential insolvency proceedings would have been self-fulfilling and hastened Monarch’s demise according to administrator KPMG.

Monarch pilot found out he was losing his job via a conference call, which was charged at premium rate

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